


you can't choose what stays and what fades away

by mountainsbeyondmountains



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jonsa babies - Freeform, One Shot, Post Season 8, Post-War for the Dawn, Stark Family, inspired by Jon saying he'd like to wander beyond the wall, the past repeats itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 07:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18752281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainsbeyondmountains/pseuds/mountainsbeyondmountains
Summary: "Will you tell me who my father is?"Florence lyrics for the title (as per usual).





	you can't choose what stays and what fades away

**i.**

The first time she’s called a bastard, Ree’s thirteen years old.

She and Joanna have gone to the Wintertown, with Ser Podrick trailing behind them as a guard. Her mother’s only recently started allowing Ree to leave the castle walls without her, and even then, she insists that either Brienne or Podrick must accompany her. Joanna hates having her own mother come along, naturally, so they beg Podrick to take them as often as they can. He’s usually not too hard to convince. Ree doesn’t mind having him come along, if she’s being honest- when she and Joanna buy fabric and flowers and trinkets from the market, he always carries their purchases for them- but she doesn’t really see the point of his presence besides that. There’s no  _ danger  _ in the Wintertown. People are always so happy to see her. Her mother’s just being overprotective.

She is  _ always  _ overprotective.

They’ve just turned into an alleyway when someone calls out Ser Podrick’s name. A woman, alone, unfettered by a husband or a father or a brother or a knight to guard her. “Podrick!” she shouts. “The legend himself. Podrick, how long has it been since you last came to visit us? The girls are getting so lonely.”

“Who is  _ that _ ?” Joanna hisses in Ree’s ear.

“I don’t know. But she looks cold.” Ree has never see a woman dressed the way this one is- most northern women wear conservative dresses and shawls, her mother never lets an inch of unnecessary skin show, and Brienne and Aunt Arya always wear breeches and doublets. But this woman’s dress seems hardly more substantial than a night shift.

She catches up to them and plants a kiss on Ser Podrick’s blushing cheek. Then she scrutinizes Ree and Joanna, and asks, “Who are these two ladies? Let me guess- the Kingslayer’s daughter, and the bastard.”   
It takes Ree a moment to realize who the woman refers to when she says  _ bastard.  _ “I’m not a bastard,” she murmurs faintly, just as Joanna protests, “My father was an honorable man!”

The woman tosses her head back as she laughs. First she says to Joanna, “If believing that helps you sleep at night, so be it.” Then she turns to Ree. “You’re Margaery Snow, aren’t you?”

“Margaery  _ Stark. _ And nobody calls me Margaery anyway.”   
“Your mother isn’t married, is she? That makes you a Snow.” The woman pinches Ree’s cheek so hard it stings. “Don’t worry. I’m a Snow too.”

Ser Podrick says, “Please, Laya, leave them alone.”   
“What, are you going to use your sword on me?” The woman laughs again, and lowers herself in a mocking half-curtsy. “My apologies, princess, milady. I was only teasing. Pod, I hope I’ll see you again sometime soon.” Then she takes her leave of them, returning to wherever she came from. It occurs to Ree that  _ wherever  _ is probably the Wintertown whorehouse. 

She’s never met a whore before.

When the woman is gone, Podrick grimly takes Ree’s right shoulder and Joanna’s left one, and steers them through the alleyway. “We’re going straight back to the castle,” he says.

Ree cranes her neck and twist back to get a proper look at him. “Why did she call you a legend, Podrick?”

“Yeah, what have you ever done that’s legendary?” Joanna asks.

“Nothing. Let’s stop talking about it.”

“Fine,” Joanna grumbles. She looks to Ree and says, “That woman didn’t know what she was talking about. My father was a hero. And you’re not a bastard.”   
Ree thinks about the stories she’s heard about Joanna’s father. That he killed a king and a queen. That he saved Brienne’s life during the Great War. That he pushed Uncle Bran out of a window. But she doesn’t voice any of these thoughts, just lays a hand on Joanna’s arm and says, “Of course he was.” Then she reflects for a moment, and adds, “But I think I might really be a bastard.”   
She’s never been forced to contemplate it before, but now she wonders how she didn’t realize it before. Fatherless children were no rarity, not after all the wars the northerners had endured. But while Brienne is always eager to share stories about Jaime, her mother never once makes any mention of Ree’s father. It’s as if she prefers to pretend that her daughter simply came into being one day, with no blood or sweat or tears involved.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a bastard,” Podrick says. “I’ve known plenty of honorable bastards, and plenty of awful trueborn folks. Your mother pretended to be a bastard once for a time, Ree. And your uncle Gendry-”

“He’s not my uncle, actually.”

“He’s as good as your uncle. He was a bastard, before he was legitimized. And your uncle Jon- well, no,  _ he’s _ not your actual uncle either, but- he thought he was a bastard for most of his life. People treated him like one. And look at him. He’s the real legend, not me.”   
Her uncle Jon feels more like a legend than a living, breathing person to Ree. She’s never met him- he vanished, just like the heroes in the stories do. And no one at Winterfell ever mentions him, even though she knows it was the place he grew up, the place he once ruled the north from. Sometimes a travelling bard will come and make the mistake of singing a song about the Battle of the Bastards, or the Great War, or the second Dance of Dragons, but whenever they play those songs, Ree’s mother will leave the hall before the first verse is even over. 

Jon Snow, Ree’s father, and bastards. Those are the three things never spoken of at Winterfell.

**ii.**

That night, her mother sends away the maid to brush her daughter’s hair herself. Ree inspects the reflection of the two of them in the mirror. They really don’t look much alike, she thinks, not at all. They’re both tall, and slim, and have blue eyes, but then the similarities end. Even the colors of their irises are different- her mother’s eyes are the pale leached blue of the sky at dawn, while Ree’s are darker, high noon during the summer. And while her mother always twists her auburn hair into complicated braids, Ree’s is black and wild and never does what it’s supposed to do. She used to think that her hair meant she had the Stark look, but now she finds herself wondering if maybe it’s something passed down from her father instead.

Ree decides to be direct about it. She gathers her courage and asks, “Who is my father?”   
Her mother’s hand, holding the brush, abruptly stops moving. She sighs and says, “A wolf.” Then she resumes her placid brushstrokes. 

“I’m serious. I want to know the truth. Who is he?”

“A ghost.”   
“He must be  _ someone.  _ I know how these things work, I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all. But it doesn’t really matter who your father is, or was, or might have been, does it? We’re happy without him,” her mother says.   
“If it doesn’t matter, then why won’t you tell me?”

She receives no reply to that question, and while Ree knows that means she might have won the argument, it doesn’t mean she’ll learn the truth tonight. So she changes tactics, and says, “Margaery is a southern name. Did he ask you to name me that? Whoever he is?”   
“No, I chose the name,” her mother says. She finishes her ministrations and places the brush on Ree’s vanity table, only to begin picking up other curios, worrying them in her hands for a moment, then setting them down again just as quickly. “Margaery was a friend of mine, back when I lived in King’s Landing.”

“You don’t talk about King’s Landing a lot.”   
“I try not to think about it. It’s a horrible place, filled with horrible people. But Margaery was kind to me, when practically no one else was. She had her own reasons for it, which maybe weren’t so kind. But that didn’t really matter. All that mattered to me then was that someone smiled at me, occasionally, and pretended to care about me.”

“She became the queen, didn’t she?” Ree says, recalling her history lessons. 

“For a time. She was good at it. The best queen I’ve ever known.”

“What happened to her? When Cersei took power?”   
Her mother picks up a necklace with a jade pendant, turns the green stone so that it catches the candlelight. “She was locked in a sept and burned alive with wildfire.” She drops the necklace back in Ree’s jewelry box and slams the lid shut. “Some truths are worse than others, Ree. Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.”

  
**iii.**

Aunt Arya doesn’t like feasts. Ree asked her why, once, and she’d grimaced and said, “Bad things happen when you gather too many people in one place.” So even now, on Ree’s fourteenth name day, she’s not seated at the high table with the rest of the family, but rather tucked away in a corner with Gendry. The two of them are absorbed in conversation, and Ree sees their distraction as an opportunity. She sidles up to the edge of the table, trying to go unnoticed, and begins to nonchalantly pour from the flagon of wine.

She gets half a cup before Aunt Arya reaches out and snatches the flagon from her. “That’ll be enough of that,” she says, as Gendry laughs.

“But I’m fourteen now!” Ree says. “That’s plenty old enough!”

“Your mother doesn’t allow it. I’m sorry. Besides, you don’t want any of it anyway. Wine slows your reflexes. Makes you complacent.” 

As Aunt Arya talks, Gendry reaches across the table and takes the flagon, then pours himself another glass. Ree scowls at him. “It’s not fair.”

“Oh, look at that pout,” Arya says. 

Gendry laughs, and adds, “Looks just like her father right now.”

Ree’s scowl changes to a look of pure surprise. “You know! You know who he is. I’ve been asking but no one will tell me.”

Aunt Arya elbows Gendry hard in the ribs. “You  _ idiot _ ,” she says. “Sansa specifically told us not to- gods, this is why you don’t drink, Ree. It makes you fucking stupid.”   
“But won’t you tell me who my father is?” Ree pleads. She sits down on the bench across from them, keeping her back straight and her gaze steady, the way her mother does when she negotiates with the other northern lords. “Or at least tell me why it’s such a big secret?”   
Aunt Arya meets her stare head-on, unblinking. She says, “Let’s play a game. You tell me your guesses, who you think might be your father. Sounds like you’ve thought about it plenty. And I promise to tell you if you’re right or wrong. We’ll see if you can figure it out.”

Ree nods in agreement, and, for the first time, gives voice to the speculations which have kept her up at night these past few months. “Was he a southerner?” She’d thought maybe that would explain why her mother was so reluctant to talk about him. Most northerners weren’t too keen on southerners. 

“No,” Aunt Arya says. “He wasn’t.”

“Was he a wildling?”

“No. And you’re supposed to call them  _ free folk,  _ you know that.”   
“Sorry. Was he a giant?” she asks, only half-japing. Lately, it feels like all she’s been doing is outgrowing her old dresses and constantly re-hemming her skirts to cover her ankles. 

“Definitely not. Clearly, you’ve never seen a giant, because how would your mother even-- never mind. No. Just no.”   
“Then was he a dwarf? I know my mother and the Imp were married once.”   
“And the marriage was annulled, because it was unconsummated. Besides, you don’t look anything like a Lannister.”   
Ree would never divulge her next question to anyone but her aunt, and even now she only dares whisper it. “Was he Ramsay Bolton?” 

“No.”   
“Was he the Hound?”   
At that, Gendry spits out his drink and chokes on his own laughter, causing Aunt Arya to thump him on the back. He wheezes, “Seven hells, Ree, where did you get that idea? The  _ Hound _ ?”   
“I don’t know, somebody told me he liked my mother when she was younger.”   
“I already told you he wasn’t a southerner,” Aunt Arya says. “Any more guesses?”

She only has one possibility left. She’s saved it for last because it’s the one she thinks is most likely to be true. That the only man her mother has ever spoken of with fondness might really be her father. She says his name aloud with almost certainty in her voice. “Theon Greyjoy.”

Aunt Arya shakes her head a little sadly. “No, Ree. They were great friends, at the end. And Theon gave his life protecting Bran. But he’s not your father. He couldn’t have children.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not a story to tell at a name-day celebration,” Arya says. “Looks like I won our game.”

“I just have one more question,” Ree insists. “Were my father and my mother married? I don’t know, in secret, or something? Like Lyanna and Rhaegar?”   
“They weren’t.”   
Rhee sighs and looks down at the table, traces the grain of the wood with her finger. “So I am a bastard.”   
“Hey.” Gendry reaches out his hand, taps her under the chin so that she holds her head high again. “There’s nothing wrong with being born on the wrong side of the sheets, all right? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Or Arya here will have to kill them, and that’s such a mess.”

“Marriage isn’t all that,” Aunt Arya consoles her. “Look at me and Gendry.”

“Right,” Gendry says. “Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve asked you to marry me, might as well keep trying.” With some difficulty- he really is sort of drunk, Ree realizes- he maneuvers down to one knee and clasps Aunt Arya’s hand. “Arya Stark, will you-”

She swats him on the head. “No, you idiot. Get up before you fall over.”

**iv.**

Soon after Ree turns fourteen, her mother announces that they’ll be travelling north. A small party, just them and Brienne and Podrick. “North?” Ree asks. The furthest she’s ever been from Winterfell is Moat Cailin. “Can we go see the Wall?”

“We’re going past the Wall,” her mother tells her. And then she acts like she’s said nothing out of the ordinary at all, only proceeds to begin laying out Ree’s warmest clothes to prepare for the journey. 

The day they depart, as they’re packing up the saddlebags, Podrick says, “Here we go again. Hopefully we won’t have to kill anybody. At least there’s no ravenous dogs chasing after us this time.”   
“What do you mean?” Ree asks him, aghast, while Brienne shoots him a look. Ree is familiar with that look- people wear it all the time when she’s around. It’s the expression that says,  _ you shouldn’t have said that.  _

Her mother explains, “Brienne and Podrick accompanied me to the Wall once before. I was fleeing from my second husband.”

“Why did you go to the Wall, though?” Ree knows that the Wall was manned for millenia, but for her entire lifetime, it’s been deserted. There’s no need for it anymore, now that the White Walkers have been defeated and the Free Folk and northerners are at peace. 

“Because Jon was there.”

“And he helped you take Winterfell back?”

Her mother nods. “And then I fed my second husband to his own hounds.”   
Ree gasps, thinking that surely she must be joking. But then Brienne gives her a nod of confirmation, and Ree sighs. “Everything interesting happened  _ before  _ I was born.”   
So they ride north. There’s not much else to do except make conversation. Usually her mother is reticent when it comes to talking about her past, but maybe it’s something about the journey, retracing her old steps, or maybe it’s the fact that Ree is fourteen now, and closer to being a woman grown, but now her mother shares stories that Ree has never heard before. Stories about giants and wights and direwolves and dragons- but Ree doesn’t really believe in dragons until she sees the Wall.

Of course she knows they were real- she’s read her histories and heard accounts firsthand- but it’s not until she sees the gaping hole in the Wall that she can truly imagine them. This wound that will never truly heal is what makes her understand. She feels the strangest kind of recognition as she gazes at the remains of the destruction dragonfire wrought, as if she can hear an echo of the beasts’ cries, or feel their wingbeats overhead.

They continue beyond the Wall, picking their way through the ruins until they reach the edge of the forest. Her mother leads the way, like she knows exactly where she’s going in this unfamiliar terrain, until she finds a clearing where she declares they’ll set up camp. Then, after the tents have been erected and some game’s been scrounged up and the campfire’s been lit, her mother clears the snow off a rock and sits. She does it elegantly, as if she’s sitting at home in Winterfell’s great hall. But it’s strange to see her like this, so still and quiet that she may as well be part of the ancient landscape, here at the end of the world. “What are you doing?” Ree asks her. 

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

Ree rolls her eyes. “You sound like Uncle Bran.” She walks over to join Brienne by the fire. Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, she gestures to her mother and says, “Do you think she’s gone crazy?”   
“Have a little faith in her,” Brienne says. “She knows what she’s doing. Even when it seems like she doesn’t.”

The hours pass. Brienne lovingly tends to Oathkeeper, and Podrick starts to instruct Ree about whittling to keep her from crying of boredom, and all the while her mother just sits there, staring into the trees. For a long time, there’s only the wind and the wilderness and the white tundra stretching on for miles. But then her mother suddenly stands and says, “There. Look, Ree.”

Ree follows her arm, pointing due north. It takes her a moment to see it- a speck of white, smeared with grime and blood, moving toward them. A creature from a past era, wild and hungry and fierce. “Is that a  _ direwolf _ ? I thought they were all dead.”   
“Not all of them,” her mother says. Then she shouts, “Ghost, to me!” The wolf takes off running toward them. And Rhee knows that she’s a Stark and she shouldn’t be afraid, but a scornful voice in the back of her head tells her that she’s a Snow, and she should  _ run.  _ Still, she stands her ground until the direwolf reaches them. He stops, red eyes staring at them. Then he pads closer until he brushes against her mother’s skirts and obediently waits for her to sink her fingers in his fur.

“You can pet him too,” she says to Ree. “He won’t hurt you. Will you, Ghost? No, you won’t, you’re such a good boy.”   
Ree tentatively holds out her hand. She braces herself for a flash of fangs, sudden pain, a spurt of blood onto the snow. But instead the direwolf gently noses at her, then gives her hand a quick lick. Soon, he’s lying down, docile as can be, as she runs her hand through his fur again and again. 

Then there’s a man voice, echoing through the quiet emptiness of the far north as he calls out Ghost’s name. Ree notices her mother smooth her skirts and twist the end of her braid around her fingers as the sound becomes louder. 

A man with a wild black beard emerges from the hinterland. Ree notices something familiar about his ragged cloak, as well as the carved direwolf hilt to the sword strapped to his hip. This must be the mysterious Uncle Jon, she thinks. Or, to use his proper name, Aegon Targaryen. 

He stops in his tracks when he sees them. For a moment, it’s as if the Night King really did win all those years ago, and the whole world is nothing but cold and stillness. Then Ree’s mother speaks and breaks the spell. “Hello, Jon.”   
“Sansa. You’re here.” 

Still near the campfire, but now risen to his feet, Podrick softly clears his throat. Uncle Jon hastily adds, “And Pod, Brienne. It’s good to see you as well, of course.” His eyes land on Ree, still petting Ghost. “Who’s this?”

“My daughter, Margaery.”   
“Margaery,” Uncle Jon echoes. He looks utterly dazed, and Ree can’t help but wonder if all these years beyond the Wall have left him a little touched in the head. 

She curtsies the way her mother taught her, and gives him a hesitant grin. “You can call me Ree,” she says. “Everybody does.”   
He nods. “How old are you, Ree?”   
“Just turned fourteen.”   
Uncle Jon’s gloved fingers move slightly, as if he’s figuring out calculations in his head. “Ree, I’m your-”   
“Uncle,” her mother quickly says.

He turns to stare at her, and Ree’s mother doesn’t flinch. Some kind of silent communication seems to pass between them, comprised solely of minute changes in the eyes and expression, a language Ree doesn’t understand. “I’m not your uncle, really,” Jon says. “I’m your cousin, Sansa. Not your brother.”   
“Don’t I know it,” Ree’s mother mutters. 

“How did you find me?” Uncle Jon asks her. 

“When I go to sleep, I see through Ghost’s eyes.”

“And when did  _ that _ start?”   
“You know when it started. I saw you in my dreams, Jon. That’s how I found you.” Ree’s mother steps closer to her uncle. “I apologize for disturbing your self-imposed exile. I know how badly you wanted to disappear. But I thought you should meet your family.”   
“Sansa-” 

But then she steps away again, walking back to the fire. Uncle Jon sighs, and Ree wonders why her mother took her to see someone that she so obviously despises. 

**v.**

It doesn’t take long for Ree to notice that Uncle Jon isn’t the most effusive man. He really only speaks to try and get her mother’s attention (which her mother doesn’t grant him), or to answer a question he’s been asked. But Ree doesn’t really mind. She has enough questions to sustain the conversation long after Brienne, Podrick, and her mother have retired for the evening, and it’s just her and her uncle sitting around the fire. 

“Is it true you came back from the dead?” she asks.

Uncle Jon nods. 

“What was it like?”

“Painful.”   
“What about riding a dragon? Was it fun?”

“It was terrifying. Nearly pissed myself every time,” he confesses. Then he seems to realize what he’s said, and quickly apologizes, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t swear in front of you.”   
“It’s fine, I’ve heard far worse from Aunt Arya.”   
Uncle Jon laughs, but when it fades, he seems more morose than ever. “Arya,” he says. “I should go see her. And Bran, and everyone. I shouldn't have left.”

“When did you go?” Ree asks.

“After the war was done in King’s Landing.”   
“Why did you do it?”

“They wanted to crown me king, and that was the last thing I wanted. I’d had enough of all of it. Just wanted peace and quiet.”

Ree glances around at the silent woods surrounding them. “It’s certainly peaceful and quiet here.” Uncle Jon doesn’t respond to that, too lost in his own thoughts. But his answer about when he left is enough to spur her to ask him another question. “Uncle Jon, do you know who my father was? Did you ever meet him?”

He startles. “Have you, um- have you talked to your mother about this?”   
“She won’t tell me anything. Says it’s a secret, that I can know when I’m older.” Ree grabs ahold of the long stick Podrick used earlier to stoke the fire, and prods at the smoldering log now until sparks fly up into the air. “Do you think he’s alive?” she asks Jon. “Do you think he knows about me? Or cares?”   
He’s quiet for so long that she thinks he won’t reply. But then he says, “I think… I think you’re a wonderful girl, Ree. And your father would be lucky to know you and get to see you grow up.”

Yet again, she’s left without a definitive answer to her question. But she leaves the conversation with her uncle feeling slightly better than she did before.

**vi.**

Ghost’s cold nose nudges Ree awake. She swats at his muzzle and turns over in her bedroll, but then the wolf grabs the edge of her blanket in his teeth and drags it until she’s exposed to the icy northern air. Ree sits up to wrest the blanket back, then notices that the place where her mother slept last night is empty. So she quickly dons her boots and cloak and treads out into the dawn. 

It’s easy to follow her mother’s tracks into the trees, and with Ghost by her side, Ree isn’t much afraid of anything that might dwell in the forest. After a short while, she starts following not one pair of footprints, but two. Ree makes sure to move quickly and quietly enough that Aunt Arya would be proud, then conceals herself behind a tree so that she won’t be noticed as she approaches her mother and uncle. 

They’re arguing. “--could have told me,” Jon is saying when Ree is finally close enough to eavesdrop.

“What, was I supposed to send you a raven?” her mother scoffs in reply. “By the time I found out, you were gone, Jon. And you’d made it very clear that you didn’t plan on coming back.”   
“I would have if I’d known! I would have helped you! You shouldn’t’ve had to do this alone.”

“But I did anyway,” her mother says.   
Uncle Jon sighs. “You did a good job, Sansa. Truly.”   
“Thank you.” 

Ree then hears something she’s never heard before. It takes her a moment to place the sound, and when she does, she recoils in horror. Her mother is  _ crying.  _ She hadn’t known her mother even could cry. 

She goes back to the tent, and they leave later that morning.

Ree is surprised by how long her mother hugs Jon goodbye, considering that all they did was argue with each other.

**vii.**

“Your eyes are getting darker,” Joanna remarks, not long after Ree comes back from beyond the wall. They’re alone in Winterfell’s kitchen, sharing the lemoncakes that were made to celebrate her mother’s return. 

Ree wipes off the knife they used to slice the cakes, tilts it until she can make out her reflection in the metal. Joanna’s right- the color is like clear midnight on a winter’s eve now. But she dismisses the change, saying, “It’s just a trick of the light. It’s hard to see in here, with the torches.”

“No, they’re like that all the time. They look almost purple.”   
Ree avoids her friend’s eyes, and changes the subject of conversation to the stablehand who’s caught Joanna’s eye. But later that night, while the rest of the castle sleep, she makes her way to the library. She removes the maester’s records, as well as Samwell Tarly’s history of the Great War and Daenerys Targaryen’s failed conquest, and carries the tomes back to her chamber. She reads about the traits of Westeros’ great families: Tullys, red of hair and blue of eye, Starks, dark of hair and grey of eye, and Targaryens, with Valyrian hair and purple eyes. 

Then Ree opens Samwell’s history. It’s strange to read about the exploits of people she knows as if they were great heroes. But she isn’t so much concerned with military maneuvers or acts of great betrayal as she is with which people were  _ where _ , with  _ whom _ , and  _ when _ . And even though she hasn’t got a head for figures- she’s like her mother in that way- she scratches out estimates on the margins of the pages. 

**iix.**

She would never admit it out loud, and she knew that if her mother or aunt ever discovered it, they’d be so disappointed in her. Ree’s begun to understand what her mother meant when she said that some truths are best kept hidden. 

Her secret is that she’s afraid of her Uncle Bran, who knows everyone’s secrets. 

He spends most of his days in the godswood, staring at nothing, silent and solemn as the face carved in the heart tree. As Ree approaches him now, he doesn’t stir until she says, “Uncle Bran?”   
“Margaery,” he greets her.

“No one calls me that.”   
“But that’s your name. Margaery Snow.”   
“I suppose it is,” she admits. The question sits in her throat, the same question she’s asked almost everyone she knows. But she can’t force it to her lips, into the air, where she can never take it back. She knows if she asks here and now, she’ll know the answer for certain. 

Maybe Uncle Bran can sense it, the question trapped inside, for he tells her, “He’s on his way.”   
“Who?”   
“Aegon. He realizes that he made a mistake. He’s riding south as we speak.”   
Perhaps this new knowledge is what gives her the courage to find out the truth. “Uncle Bran,” Ree says. “You know everything, right?”   
He nods. 

Ree takes a deep breath of the cold air, and asks, “Will you tell me who my father is?”   



End file.
